If you are familiar with the films of Woody Allen, you've heard examples of gypsy jazz, a French variant on American jazz begun by Django Reinhardt and others in the 1930s. Pandora engineer and lead guitarist Vic Wong brings in other hot club players to demonstrate how gypsy jazz is played: bassist Ari Munkres, rhythm guitarist Jack Fields, and...

...music enthusiasts, this one's for you. Pandora classical music analyst Russell Johnson drops by to investigate the onward march toward atonality throughout the history of Western art music. From Renaissance times through Classical and Romantic periods onto Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the slider on the consonant-to-dissonant spectrum has edged...

...music enthusiasts, this one's for you. Pandora classical music analyst Russell Johnson drops by to investigate the onward march toward atonality throughout the history of Western art music. From Renaissance times through Classical and Romantic periods onto Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the slider on the consonant-to-dissonant spectrum has edged...

...music analyst and session drummer Jeff Anthony gets into his trick bag to show some of the little variations he throws in to boost a song's energy going into the chorus. He also breaks down the difference between the two-handed Britpop hi-hat style and the looser, one-handed Yankee hi-hat style. The audio on the outro, by the way, is from a...

...music we love. This week, singer and composer Melody Parker stops by to describe how pitches can be strung together to form a melody, and the ways in which a melody can quickly burst out, slowly develop, or gradually expand over the course of a whole section. There's a delicate art at play in the placement of pitches, from the use of motives...

...musical components of various metal genres: grindcore, metalcore, black metal, death metal, thrash, hair metal, and more. If you've ever wondered about the dark side but were too afraid to ask, dive in here and get your hands dirty. (12 mins

...music analyst Jeff Anthony shows us ways that he uses his toms and kick drum to create these variations. Among the styles he gets into: a kick-heavy sixteenth note part; a spacious, rolling pattern meant to accompany a guitar drone; a syncopated and anticipated style suitable for a lively R&B track in the vein of Earth Wind & Fire; a track...

Don't let the technical name throw you off -- metric modulation is something you will be able to hear very clearly. Pandora dance music captain Chris Horgan from Beatropolis comes by to show how tempos (tempi) can change on a dime, with the use of subdivided beats. Speeding up and slowing down are not the only ways to jump from BPM to BPM, as...

...music is like dancing about architecture. If that is true, then let's look at the recording studio as if it's an architect's drafting table. Pandora music analyst Scott Pinkmountain pulls apart a song brick by brick, and we hear the thought processes that informed his decisions. From the drummer's "stiff swing" to the method they used to...

...music analysts Alan L. Lin and Yair Evnine. Alan, a violinist, and Yair, a cellist, give us a primer on string theory as it relates to legato and staccato, arco and pizzicato, and other aspects of bowing and plucking in both the classical and pop (singer-songwriter) realms. (9 mins In addition to their work as performing musicians, Alan and...